The Township Supervisor is mandated by state law to authorize financial aid for eligible township residents in need of assistance by reason of unemployment, illness, or homelessness. State and federal standards for poverty indicate that clients served by the township not only live below the poverty line but live in extreme poverty. Extreme poverty is defined as an individual having an income below $4,000 and unable to meet basic needs suitable for health and well-being.
To be eligible for township assistance, one must document that they have income well below the extreme poverty standard. On February 1, 2007, the City of Champaign Township was forced, because of inadequate resources, to terminate over 50% of its clients. Additionally, the remaining township clients, classified as disabled, ill, and unable to work, were receiving $212. They are now only receiving $150. This is an unspeakable tragedy.

Poverty is more than just a lack of income. Poverty is also about power and inequality. It is also about access to and control over resources, social practices, and legal and institutional structures. Getting to the heart of complex webs of power relations in the political, economic, and social spheres is key to understanding and grappling with entrenched patterns of discrimination, inequality, and exclusion that condemn individuals, communities, and peoples to generations of poverty. Poverty is often perceived as a regrettable but accidental condition or as an inevitable consequence of decisions and events occurring elsewhere, or even as the sole responsibility of those who suffer it.

What does it mean to be poor? To be excluded and discriminated against? To have even the bare basic needs denied? “The Face of Poverty” is an opportunity to hear from those who are living in poverty along with individuals that work diligently in the trenches with men, women, and families who have who have been marginalized, lost hope, and are caught in the desperate web of being forgotten by a community where great wealth, growth, and prosperity abound. Poverty in our town finds that a rising tide does not raise all ships. Thus this growing disparity signals a growing discord between poverty and the macro economy. It is my hope that “The Face of Poverty” will ignite our community to take action to address poverty with the utmost urgency. We must pledge to eradicate extreme poverty and to create an environment–at the local and state levels alike–which is conducive to development and to the elimination of poverty.

We must face poverty to end it. We must embrace what it means to go without basic needs, to be judged wrongly, and to be… FORGOTTEN

The Face of Poverty will be aired City Government Television. CGTV is carried live on Insight Communications’ cable channel 5. The schedule for our show times are.
10/2/2008 at 2:30 PM
10/4/2008 at 2:30 PM
10/5/2008 at 9:30 PM
10/7/2008 at 3:30 AM
10/9/2008 at 10:00 PM
10/11/2008 at 10:30 PM
10/12/2008 at 3:30 PM
10/13/2008 at 3:30 PM
10/15/2008 at 10:00 PM
10/17/2008 at 9:30 AM
10/19/2008 at 3:30 PM
10/21/2008 at 3:30 PM
10/23/2008 at 10:30 PM
10/25/2008 at 3:30 PM
10/27/2008 at 9:30 AM
10/27/2008 at 6:00 PM
10/29/2008 at 3:30 PM
10/31/2008 at 5:30 PM
10/29/2008 at 7:00 AM
10/29/2008 at 2:30 PM
10/30/2008 at 10:00 PM
10/31/2008 at 5:56 PM
11/1/2008 at 12:00 AM
11/2/2008 at 9:00 AM
11/2/2008 at 10:00 PM
11/3/2008 at 2:00 PM